Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2005 Making Artists of Us All: The Evolution of an Educational Aesthetic George E. Abaunza Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES MAKING ARTISTS OF US ALL: THE EVOLUTION OF AN EDUCATIONAL AESTHETIC By GEORGE E. ABAUNZA A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2005 Copyright © 2005 George E. Abaunza All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of George E. Abaunza defended on August 16th, 2005. C. David Gruender Professor Directing Dissertation Emanuel I. Shargel Outside Committee Member Eugene F. Kaelin Committee Member Approved: Piers Rawling, Chair, Department of Philosophy The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii This dissertation is dedicated to the simplest of people—the citizens of nature living in poverty throughout the world—who despite suffering great hardship, manage to teach the simplest of lessons in love and humility. And to my brother Mario Jose, who lost his life by the hands of a few who never learned these lessons. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the unrelenting faith of David Gruender, who often showed more confidence in me than even myself. I must also acknowledge the endearing support of Gene Kaelin and Manny Shargel, who vowed to stay with me through the end of this endeavor. I cherish their academic lessons almost as much as those in how to be a philosopher. Of course, no one becomes the person one is without the support of family and friends. For this I am privileged to have been reared in the company of such loving people as my mother, Ana Gladys Abaunza Hunter, my father, Leonidas Gustavo Abaunza Portocarrero, and my siblings, Leonidas, Roger, Mario, Carlos, Richard, Ana, and Alvaro, all of whom in their unique way made me conscious of the value and splendor of learning. Along the way it has been my closest friends, Scott Bistrong, Marc Buoniconti, and John Lyons, who have loved me for who I am. Lastly, thanks are not enough for all that Jennifer Mayer has done to allow me to realize my passion. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................viii INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1 1. THE OPPOSITION OF THOUGHT AND ACTION ....................................4 1.1. The Simplistic Account: Thinking and Desiring 1.2. The Existentialist Backlash 1.2.1. Reason and Becoming 1.2.2. Reason and the Absurd 1.2.3. Minerva’s Reprieve 1.3. The Sophisticated Accounts: Thinking, Feeling, and Desiring 1.3.1. Horseplay in the Phaedrus 1.3.2. The Soul of the Republic 2. DEMOCRACY AS SYMBIOSIS OF THOUGHT AND ACTION ..............31 2.1. Active Thought and Thoughtful Action 2.2. The Instrumentalist Turn 2.3. Plato’s Criticism of Democracy 2.4. The Intemperate State 2.5. Ideal versus Nominal Democracy: A Deweyan Response 2.6. Individual and Social Intelligence 3. EDUCATING THE DEMOCRATIC ANIMAL............................................58 3.1. The Evolution of the Political Animal 3.1.1. From Hobbes to Locke 3.1.2. Locke’s “Missing Link” v 3.2. Democracy and the Art of Education 3.2.1. Balancing Freedom and Control 3.2.2. Habit and Repetition 3.2.3. Spoiling: The Nemesis of Self-Discipline 3.3. Motivating the Democratic Citizen 3.3.1. Punished by Rewards 3.3.2. Turning Inward 3.4. Our First Lessons 4. NATURE AND THE ART OF EDUCATION ...............................................104 4.1. In the Folds of Rousseauian Contrariness 4.1.1. A Different Sort of Contract 4.1.2. Freedom Feigned 4.2. Render Unto Nature What is Nature’s 4.2.1. Signs of Our Times 4.2.2. Rousseau’s Confounded Legacy 4.3. Movements Beyond Rousseau’s Pastoral Overture 4.3.1. First Movement: Social Control 4.3.2. Second Movement: Habits Revisited 4.3.3. Third Movement: Nature’s Encore 4.4. Nurturing Nature’s Passion 4.4.1. Striking a Balance 4.4.2. Reason and Emotion Reconciled 5. STUDENT ALIENATION: A DEWEYAN TREATMENT .........................167 5.1. Marx and the Alienation of Irrelevance 5.2. The Relevance of 'Relevance' 5.3. A Minimalist Account of Relevance vi 5.4. Dewey and the Embeddedness of Relevance 5.5. Freire on Relevance as Respect for Autonomy 6. CONCLUSION: ELEMENTS OF AN EDUCATIONAL AESTHETIC ......193 6.1. Our Understanding of Experience 6.2. Making the Ordinary Extra-Ordinary 6.3. The Nature of Aesthetic Experience 6.4. Emotion and Intelligence in the Aesthetic 6.4.1. The Aestheticism Criticism (AC) 6.4.2. The Excluded Middle Criticism (EMC) 6.5. The Learner as Artist BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................224 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..............................................................................235 vii ABSTRACT Plato was correct in his criticism of democracy. A citizenry that lacks the requisite intelligence and self-discipline to make decisions for their own welfare and that of their society cannot be entrusted with the power to make such decisions. A democratic way of life hinges upon the ability of its citizenry to exercise enough self-control to at least consider the needs, concerns, and interests of others. The history of philosophy is replete with attempts at invoking rationality as a means of directing and even subduing human desire and emotion. Understood as that which moves human beings to action, desire and emotion come to be associated with human freedom and, thus, rationality as a means of curbing that freedom. Metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological systems are proposed in efforts to explain the basis and proper end of desire, emotion, and freedom. Plato, for instance, takes for granted a separation between thought and action that drives a wedge between our rational ability to exercise self- discipline and the free expression of desire and emotion. Hobbes, on the other hand, replaces our internal ability for rational self-control with the external authority of the political State. So long as freedom and control are pitted against one another, human beings are incapable of attaining a symbiosis of these two elements of human action so essential to realizing true democracy. Unlike Plato, John Dewey sees in democracy the greatest potential for individual and social life. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the educational philosophy of Dewey, which culminates in an educational aesthetic, appeals to and makes the most of the symbiosis of freedom and self-control, emotion and reason. Dewey’s educational aesthetic not only offers an alternative to traditional methods of education, but also demonstrates how the goal of a democratic way of life is made feasible by means of intelligently guided self-discipline—a form of self-control guided by intelligence that is not a constraint upon freedom but instead, embodies greater opportunity for freedom. I trace the basis for this synthesis, in the social-political and pedagogical principles of John viii Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both Locke and Rousseau offer educational theories that begin to turn our attention toward the essential partnership required of rationality and emotion. Dewey's educational aesthetic is then considered as a response to alienating forms of education that continue to pit control and freedom against one another, and which thwart the intellectual and emotional development necessary for autonomy and democratic forms of social organization. ix INTRODUCTION It is difficult to pinpoint what exactly it is that motivated this work. Generally, I would have to say a passion for the process of learning, and to see just where and how this process may be realized. I discovered this seemingly natural process leading to growth in the aesthetic dimensions of human experience which in Deweyan terms means it is found among the potential sensibilities of all human beings. More specifically, there was the search for a thread I began to detect, the nature and purpose of which, upon first uncovering it, I was unaware. At first I recognized this thread to be most fundamentally the idea that learning is about attaining something—a disposition of self-direction, which, in turn, is only possible when we develop a disposition of self-discipline. Moving backward through the philosophical tradition as if retracing steps, I was able to discern the same line of self-directed and self-disciplined action that forms the essential elements to achieving not only personal, but also social wellbeing. In the end I pull this string taut and thereby reveal its course—a course that we may continue to trace, hopefully now with the aid of some of the clarifications I have proposed throughout these chapters. Sentimentally, what has motivated this project is the desire to bridge the gap between possibility and wasted potential; whether politically, in terms of how we organize ourselves socially, in our attempts to educate our young, or in the ordinary occurrences of our daily lives—in every manner by which we choose to define for ourselves a life worth living. In looking for the aesthetic sensibility so crucial to enriching our lives, I stumbled across the emotions and their underprivileged status in philosophical and educational discourses. This search also led me to the most fundamental sources of motivation of action—our desires and impulses, and their integral function in the human drama. Specifically, I address the importance of free expression and the place of emotion in 1 learning—elements, which, along with intellection together give vent to our aesthetic potentials. At the same time, my research has made it quite apparent that there exists a significant incongruence and dislocation between educational philosophy and actual practice.